Tesla CEO Elon Musk, owner of social media X (formerly Twitter), restored conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s X account after five years.
Musk said on the 10th that in a survey on his X account asking whether Jones’ account should be restored, 70.1% were in favor of restoring it. Jones’ account was recovered five years after it was blocked in 2018.
Jones has claimed that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were a fabricated hoax, and that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the United States that occurred 11 years ago was a fabrication. Jones previously had his account suspended by Twitter in 2018 after claiming that the Sandy Hook tragedy was fabricated by the Obama administration’s efforts to tighten gun laws.
In fact, it was a permanent ban.
In November of last year, a month after acquiring Twitter, Musk said he would reopen accounts that were suspended on Twitter but continued to block Jones’ account. However, on the 7th, it said it would consider reinstating Jones’ account, saying, “This platform dreams of becoming the world’s city square, so a permanent ban should be extremely rare.”
Musk previously restored former President Donald Trump’s account after 22 months in November of last year, and in July of last year, he also restored the account of American hip-hop singer Kanye West, who was controversial for his far-right remarks.
Meanwhile, Alex Jones was sued by the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook disaster and ordered to pay approximately $1.5 billion in compensation. He applied for personal bankruptcy protection to avoid paying the amount but was not accepted.